Boxing has long been a popular sport, and there are many training devices for amateur and professional boxers. By way of example, some prior art references disclose punching bags or dummy/mannequin targets with sensors for detecting impact speed, intensity, etc., and providing a score based thereon. One example is U.S. Pat. No. 6,464,622 to Clark, which is directed to a punching bag (i.e., a speed bag) with electronic sensors for counting the number of hits to a particular zone on the bag, and with different exercise programs for a user.
Great Britain Patent No. 2,249,033 to Albasri discloses a full or partial dummy shaped target with a resilient body section, a foam material filler, and transducers positioned at various locations on the body section for detecting punches/kicks. The transducers may also be placed in clothes that are positioned on the dummy target.
U.S. Pat. Pub. No. 2003/0216228 to Rast is directed to an apparatus for providing biofeedback for sports training to improve training in a convenient form. One aspect is directed to include a sparring device that converts impact and training rates into audio streams following human speech patterns.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,933,354 to Goldfarb et al. discloses a reflex testing amusement apparatus that allows simulated head-to-head sparring and scoring. The picture of each combatant camouflages a series of lights, with each light being located at a key attack/defense point on the combatant's body. At the start, one of the lights is turned on and the participants each try to hit their light to turn it off. The first “hit” causes both first lights to extinguish and a second light in each series to illuminate. The player to make the first “hit” gets a scoring credit for that “hit.” The participants strike at the second light and so on as the lights are sequenced in a pseudo-random order. The game continues for a predetermined period and at the end a winner is determined by comparing the number of “hits” made by the players. Modifications for a single-player game and a game which runs until a predetermined score is made are also provided.
Other references such as U.S. Pat. App. No. 2004/0009851 to Lovison and U.S. Pat. No. 6,508,747 to Cook disclose sparring gear with sensors for detecting impacts that allow opponents to score points for kicks/punches to one another that hit the designated scoring zones. These references also both teach wireless radio frequency (RF) links from the sensor to a scoring controller.
Despite the existence of such equipment, further improvements in boxing training or exercise devices/games may be desired in various applications.